smith80678

I was recently removed from a flight out of Dulles to Los Angeles because of my weight. I don't think this is fair. I weigh 278lbs. Https://onemileatatime.com/news/united-airlines-blocking-seats-passenger-weight/

jp12687

was it your weight or was it the overall plane weight and balance? Did they ask for volunteers first and no one wanted to? We’re you offered compensation for being removed?

bmwe92fan

+1 - OP Before we can all offer to help we need much more information on what happened -- I am not a POS but I've been removed for weight and balance issues many times (at least on smaller RJ's) -- and with the new weight standards being implemented for the winter it is affecting airlines in unusual ways...

porphyra

No context to anything seems like it is a bait for the linked article. Surely on a prime IAD-LAX flight, it likely is not a weight and balance issue similar to RJs. If it was a weight issue, I would imagine they'd offload some cargo first. If the OP couldn't fit the standard seatbelt and they ran out of extenders then it is a likely scenario but one that wasn't proposed.

cfischer

nope. recent flight they offloaded pax when there was a weight issue ... pilot cited high freight volume.

ContinentalFan

Agreed, much more context would be useful: for example, the OP’s height. I could see a scenario where a passenger spills over the armrest and there isn’t a second seat available for sale. Based on the information in the original post to this thread, I don’t see any criticism could be leveled at United.

pushmyredbutton

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when they offload for weight and balance, airlines don't do it based off of a passenger's actual weight. Instead, they use an established benchmark weight - one for males, and one for females? If that's the case, the OP's actual weight has no bearing here.

clubord

You’re exactly right.

The FAA determines the average passenger weight not United. Included in the passenger weight are carryons, personal effects, coats, etc.

Ever wonder why you’re limited to “one carryon and one personal item?” Why heavy bags are considered 50+ pounds. I could keep going, but you get the point. Everything is outlined by the FAA for weight and balance standardization for 121 carriers.

Last year the FAA increased the PAX weight averages and it caused some seats on the 757 to be restricted on some flights to avoid being overweight for taxi and takeoff.

United doesn’t care is someone weights 278 pounds or 110 pounds, if they’re male or female. It’s an average passenger weight for each person and that’s what is recognized by the load planners.

angetenar

Unless the gate agents got out scales and were weighing everyone, how would they know how much you (or anyone else) weighed?

roberino

If you're a lone traveller on a low ticket class with no relevant airline status then you're likely to get picked for this sort of thing.

Lomapaseo

Methinks there is play with words.

I also have been asked to be removed from a flight because of weight. In this case it was accumulated aircraft weight vs the needs for rerouting the flight due to storms along the route (small plane). Initially I couldn't understand and refused to identify myself (when I was a SDC) when called by name by the GA who had boarded with the bad news. Fortunately some other poor bloke had the same last name and raised his hand.

Ari

I spoke to the gate agent; here is what happened: The gate agent was originally going to bump two 139-lb ladies sitting across the aisle from you. The gate agent then took one final look at the manifest, saw your weight in your PNR--which was highlighted in yellow on her screen, as the United system does to the weights of all passengers over 275 lbs--and had a weighty "a-ha" moment, as the gate agent had just discovered a way to get the flight out by removing only one passenger instead of two.

Ultimately, the gate agent just followed United's policy of bumping the fewest passengers to do the greatest good for the greatest number. That means eyeing passengers and looking up the weights of any suspiciously-heavy-looking passengers in their PNR's--looking for any weights highlighted in yellow--and bumping those passengers first. It might not seem fair, but there isn't any better way.

findark

Curious - is it actually possible to be a MTOW issue? Trying to understand in what cases they will offload pax versus just make a fuel stop.

LarryJ

The only way a passenger is going to be removed for their ACTUAL weight is if you don't meet the requirements for fitting in a single seat and haven't bought an extra seat or been upgraded. The requirements are below. 278 pounds wouldn't normally put someone in that category but, it could, depending on how the weight is carried.

https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...a-seating.html
------------------------------------.
You’ll have to buy an additional seat or upgrade if you don’t meet one of the following criteria:

1. You must be able to properly attach, buckle and wear the seat belt, with one extension if necessary, whenever the seatbelt sign is illuminated or as instructed by a crew member.
2. You must be able to stay seated with the seat armrest(s) down for the whole flight.
3. You must not significantly encroach upon the adjacent seating space.

The 757 issue, from what I understand, has to do with the load limit of the floor in certain sections of the airplane. When the average passenger weights transition to winter weights on November 1st, you can no longer have all seats filled and still comply with that limitation. Depending on the aircraft configuration, either three or six seats, all middle seats, are blocked and unusable on the affected aircraft during the period that winter weights are used. Each blocked seat is marked as unusable and can not be occupied for any reason.

General weight restricted flights have already been discussed. In those cases, the determination is made based on average passenger weights and have nothing to do with a particularly passenger's actual weight.

fumje

Tangent: reminds me of one time flying a foreign carrier in another country, and in the jet bridge they had some bathroom scales for everyone step up on with bags. They obviously were tallying weights, but I don't know why they weren't using an average, as they apparently did on all the other flights I've had with that carrier.